Bully. This word describes almost every teen today, whether they know it or not. Social media makes that possible, and true. When we are younger, the image of a bully is one that is associated with a big, burly guy who wanted to take our lunch money. In reality, they are rarely ever that easy to spot. There are obvious ones, the people that constantly are being mean to others, making fun of them every day for various reasons. Those are the people that have been hurt, and this is their way of lashing out. A good dose of standing up for yourself and talking to an adult usually fixes those. Then there are our friends, the people we don’t want to talk to an adult about, because most of the time we don’t realize that we’re a victim. Kids get bullied every day by people they call their friends, because they have always been treated that way. The only way to prevent that is by surrounding yourself with people you know for a fact are treating you right. Now, there are the hardest kind of bully to deal with, the one everyone is. A cyber bully. All those people on Facebook, YouTube, and Tumbler that say rude things are bullies-but they don’t want to be. Just a few years ago I found myself being mean to others over the internet, and it’s easy because no one needs to know who you are. Everything can be done anonymously, so it feels safe. Things we put online don’t feel permanent, but they are more permanent than anything else we do. It took a long time for me to realize what I was doing, and stop myself before I hurt any more people. Owning up to what I did was really hard, and it can feel like it wasn’t your fault at all, but the only way to move on is to realize that what you did was wrong and hurtful. Forgiving yourself for what you did is the next hardest part, and it took me over a year. Taking time to do this isn’t bad, but I let it rule my life for too long. Once people knew it was me, the tables turned and I was the one being bullied, and by all my friends. I felt isolated at school, and I would cry every night. For the longest time all I wanted to do was move away, and I walked around feeling as if I had nowhere to go. Recently I found out that a lot of people go through this, and the best thing to do is apologize for what you said, and work it out with the people you hurt. Nothing is as big as you think it is in middle school and high school. People will forgive you, and you have to give everyone-including yourself-time to heal. With the way things are nowadays, everyone is a bully, but everyone is a victim, too.